Tuesday, November 23, 2010

O Docker, bless his little cotton socks, called it right six weeks ago. In The Thrill of Victory he drew our attention to the terms negotiated by the City of San Francisco with the current holders of the America's Cup for the "privilege" of hosting the next AC in their beautiful city by the bay. The perceptive and persistent Mr. Docker searched through all the legalese in the terms and discovered that the city by the bay was planning to give away 66 and 75 year leases on 25 acres of prime waterfront property for aforementioned "privilege". And the lucky fellow who would be the beneficiary of this windfall would, of course, be a certain Lawrence Joseph Ellison. What a shocker!

Now another clever West Coast dude called Harvey Rose, bless his little cotton socks, has been crunching some numbers and worked out that the "privilege" of hosting AC 34 will cost San Francisco as much as $128 million. Harvey is not as prominent in the blogosphere as Mr. Docker, but Harvey works in the San Francisco Budget Analyst's Office, so I guess he knows a thing or two about budgets and costs and has produced some very fancy spreadsheets to support his case. Nice work Harvey!

What a wonderful, generous bunch the people of San Fransisco are! They want to shell out $128 million of their own hard-earned dough in these difficult economic times to help make the sixth richest man in the world even richer. It sure is in the finest tradition of voodoo trickle-up economics.

Meanwhile, back in Newport, the real home of the America's Cup, the America's Cup RI 2013 Planning Committee didn't lose heart when they were told that there wouldn't be an America's Cup RI 2013. They switched gears and are now working hard on preparing to host an America’s Cup pre-regatta in Newport in September 2012. Apparently Mr. Russell Coutts, bless his little cotton socks, has told the chaps in Rhode Island that there will be pre-regattas and that, "Newport will be given top priority for any such regattas in the USA." I should hope so!

The plans for the pre-regatta include upgrading Fort Adams, home of the famous Laser Fleet 413, into a world-class sailing center which could be used to host future sailing events. As far as I can tell there are no plans to donate Fort Adams State Park or any other parcels of Newport prime waterfront property to Lawrence Joseph Ellison, bless his little cotton socks. I should hope not!

Is it just my perverted perspective, or does it seem like that when you win you really lose, and that when you lose you really win?

Yea, I think Valencia basically went bankrupt after the last time they got suckered into hosting the America's Cup. As Bush the Younger (bless his little cotton socks) famously said, "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on.... (long pause).... shame on you. Fool me..... (long pause again)..... you can't get fooled again."

Actually, O Docker, Fort Adams is already a pretty good sailing center. Lots of docks, launching ramps, host to a major community sailing center, yachting museum etc. etc. Between Fort Adams and NYYC just across the cove they seem to be able to host almost any major yachting event already. They are really just talking about making it even bigger and better so they can handle these monster multi-hulls of AC34.

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